EU sets Apr. 23 deadline for approving or rejecting Apple's Shazam takeover

The European Commission has announced an Apr. 23 provisional deadline for a decision on Apple's intended acquisition of Shazam, perhaps the world's most popular song recognition service.

The official timeline follows requests for a review by several European countries, including Austria, France, Iceland, Italy, Norway, Spain and Sweden. The governments have expressed concerns about the potential negative impact on competition.

Shazam's iOS app often links to Apple Music and iTunes, and is already integrated into Siri. At the moment though the app is also available for Android, and links to non-Apple services such as Spotify, Deezer, and/or Google Play, depending on the song.

Apple will presumably want to keep Shazam on Android — since Apple Music is available there as well — but it could be tempted to remove links to third-party streaming services. That might have a damaging effect given Shazam's popularity.

Apple Music is still playing catch-up with the leader in on-demand music, Spotify. While Apple has 38 million paid customers, Spotify has over 71 million, plus many more listening to its free ad-based tier. The latter is testing a voice assistant, and could be working on its own smartspeaker.

11 Comments

teejay2012 12 Years · 410 comments

About 6 years ago

With all that the EU has to worry about these days, they have time to consider a song recognition app being of such importance? If this is not political and related to whining by Spotify, I am not sure why this iwould even be an issue.

SpamSandwich 19 Years · 32917 comments

teejay2012 said:

With all that the EU has to worry about these days, they have time to consider a song recognition app being of such importance? If this is not political and related to whining by Spotify, I am not sure why this iwould even be an issue.

All part of the tit-for-tat political gamesmanship that happens with politicians.

crowley 15 Years · 10431 comments

teejay2012 said:

With all that the EU has to worry about these days, they have time to consider a song recognition app being of such importance? If this is not political and related to whining by Spotify, I am not sure why this iwould even be an issue.

What other pressing issues do the EU have to worry about in terms of anti-competitive industry practices? Or are you suggesting that the staff they employ to investigate and regulate industry could be simply transferred to whatever area your particular gripe is with (immigration right? It's always immigration).

racerhomie3 7 Years · 1264 comments

I cannot wait for Italy to leave the EU.

BubbaTwo 7 Years · 21 comments

teejay2012 said:

With all that the EU has to worry about these days, they have time to consider a song recognition app being of such importance? If this is not political and related to whining by Spotify, I am not sure why this iwould even be an issue.

Spotify (although far from profitable) is a European company -- one of the ONLY European internet based with a global brand. Don't kid yourself in one doesn't think that a good portion of the EU's quick to investigate U.S. tech companies (Microsoft, Google, Apple, Qualcomm, etc.) is because virtually NONE of the top software, phone/computer manufacturers, chip companies, and internet companies are based in Europe. By just announcing they are going to investigate things they remind U.S. companies and our politicians that they can and have seriously screwed with U.S. tech companies which is one of the only major global enterprises the U.S. leads.

Even though I am largely a free market guy, I applaud the EU's continuous nagging of the CA based tech companies, as I think it's horrible with some of things they can do in regards to data collection/retention. I am referring more to Facebook, Google, and Twitter than Apple in this regard. Apple gets investigated merely for being yet another reminder to the EU that they are merely a CONSUMER of technology versus a producer.

Apple would be foolish to sever the ties of Shazam to Spotify. There are a couple of inferior competing song recognition apps out there and severing ties to Spotify would more than likely just mean another app would step in and take their place. They may has well keep making money off Spotify.

I can't see Spotify succeeding as a stand alone company in the long run -- my prediction is they will get swallowed up by a someone like Netflix, Sirius, or perhaps Facebook. I think Google Music and Apple Music have a better long term model in that they use music as sort of a loss leader in an integrated ecosystem. Disclaimer I am a premium subscriber to Spotify. I have used Google Music and Amazon Music some (I prefer Spotify), but have yet to try Apple Music. At some point, I will probably give Apple music a try.

The record industry doesn't know what to about Spotify. They reluctantly keep them around because they are worried that if they do away their free advertising tier will lead to an increase of piracy.

Get your popcorn out! It's a good show...